In Japan, world's longest-serving death row inmate to get retrial

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated 2:42 PM ET, Thu March 27, 2014

Released after 48 years on death row6 photos

Released after 48 years on death row – Iwao Hakamada leaves a detention center in Tokyo on Thursday, March 27. Hakamada was convicted of a quadruple murder in 1966, but his death sentence was suspended after DNA testing indicated key evidence against him may have been fabricated, reported NHK, the Japanese public broadcasting organization.

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Released after 48 years on death row6 photos

Released after 48 years on death row – Hideko Hakamada, Iwao's elder sister, speaks to his supporters outside the Shizuoka District Court on March 27 in Shizuoka, Japan.

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Released after 48 years on death row6 photos

Released after 48 years on death row – Hideko Hakamada speaks to reporters on March 27 in Shizuoka. She told the crowd, "Thank you very much. I am very pleased. I am very thankful with everyone's support," according to the NHK footage.

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Released after 48 years on death row – Hideko Hakamada, center, sheds tears of joy after the court ruling.

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Released after 48 years on death row – Hideko Hakamada holds up a picture of her brother when he was younger.

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Released after 48 years on death row6 photos

Released after 48 years on death row – Norimichi Kumamoto, a former Shizuoka District Court judge, told an anti-death penalty assembly in 2007 that he thought Iwao Hakamada was not guilty when he was involved in the man's trial. However, he agreed to the death sentence after the two other judges involved in the case made the decision.

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Story highlights

Iwao Hakamada served 48 years in prison for murders of his boss and boss's family

Court granted him a retrial, saying some evidence may have been fabricated

Amnesty international says he was beaten and threatened into confessing in 1966

78-year-old ex-boxer's mental state deteriorated because of isolation, Amnesty says

Iwao Hakamada holds the most dubious of records: Convicted of a 1966 quadruple murder, he is the world's longest-serving death row inmate, according to Amnesty International.

That record was capped Thursday when, after almost 48 years, a local court reopened Hakamada's case, Amnesty and Japanese media reported. The Shizuoka District Court suspended his death sentence and released Hakamada after DNA testing indicated key evidence against him may have been fabricated, reported NHK, the Japanese public broadcasting organization.

The court said keeping him detained any longer would be unjust, NHK reported.

Prosecutors have four days to appeal the court's ruling, but Amnesty International's East Asia research director said it would be "most callous and unfair" to challenge the court's decision.

"Time is running out for Hakamada to receive the fair trial he was denied more than four decades ago," Roseann Rife said. "If ever there was a case that merits a retrial, this is it. Hakamada was convicted on the basis of a forced confession, and there remain unanswered questions over recent DNA evidence."

NHK video showed several men in blue uniforms, some wearing surgical masks, escorting the 78-year-old former pro boxer out of a Tokyo detention center Thursday.

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Hunched forward and wearing a yellow, short-sleeved button-down, Hakamada entered a silver van. He was accompanied by his sister, Hideko Hakamada, who earlier attended a rally outside the court in which several dozen supporters broke into emphatic applause when a man unfurled a sign saying, "Retrial granted."

An emotional Hideko Hakamada told the crowd, "Thank you very much. I am very pleased. I am very thankful with everyone's support," according to the NHK footage.

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Iwao Hakamada was convicted in 1966 of killing his boss at a soybean processing company, along with the boss's wife and two children, Amnesty said.

"Hakamada 'confessed' after 20 days of interrogation by police. He retracted the confession during the trial and told the court that police had beaten and threatened him," Amnesty said. "According to his lawyers, recent forensic tests show no match between Hakamada's DNA and samples taken from clothing the prosecution alleges was worn by the murderer."

District Court Judge Hiroaki Murayama, who handled the retrial proceeding, said DNA test results indicated blood found on five items of clothing allegedly worn by the culprit was not Hakamada's, according to Kyodo News.

Like most death row inmates in Japan, Hakamada was largely held in solitary confinement during his 48 years in prison. His mental health has deteriorated as a result of the decades he spent isolated, Amnesty said.